This is a letter to myself.
“It’s all meaningless!” you cry! The void! Ahh!
Literally the Bible says that. You’re not that cool.
But practice screaming into the void for a while. Do it as long as you need to. It won’t echo for you. It won’t talk back. (Thinking: you’re probably just screaming up at the sky, or, better yet, you’re staring up at the stars—this is a good thing—only screaming in your brain, which just sounds like talking in ALL CAPS).
And then (oh no! the problematic then. How am I supposed to move on from this screaming?). And then, once you’ve gotten the hang of it. Once you’re a bit tired, that kind-of drunken dog tired, feeling satiated and accomplished, shape your screams. What? Do it. They call this art or poetry or literature. I don’t really think it matters too much.
So you’ve shaped your screams and we call that pretty-screaming. Pretty-singing; make some art. And keep going.
And never, never, forget this. In ten years, when you’re successful, remember: you’re just coping with the cliché cry that you can literally find in the Bible (every baby existentialist can quote Ecclesiastes). And now, instead of screaming at the void, now you’re singing! Oh boy you're singing! I swear, this is better than walking on water. And please, for the love of god, do not forget to whom you’re singing. Because, put positively, your singing is divine; shaped by staring up at the starry sky (now, out at the city lights), rebelling against the silent indifference of a cold universe, your singing (or your art or literature or, hitting close to home [this is now MadLibs]: _________ ) exists because of that problematic then, the then shared by everyone else, the then found in a text as high-and-mighty as the King James Bible; do not forget this then that points back to where you came from, a place shared with others who, also, happen to exist.
Because then you can remember that feeling of satiation, feeling stupid happy dumb; the feeling of being equalized with a soft sandpaper shredded on the heart. Then you can laugh and cry and love well, molded from a pretty scream fueled by a placeless desire. Because then you can watch a sunset like it’s your last, shrugging at the ten years gone by—what can you do about that time anyways? except watch the world wake up and extinguish each day, and fill it with the compassion—like Jesus and his thieving friends on crosses—of your pretty screaming. Would you miss the world, if it were gone? Then maybe, now, it’s not so meaningless after all.